WASHINGTON (AFP) - Leading US author, poet and civil rights campaigner Maya Angelou said Wednesday that Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton was the "prayer" of every American who longed for fair play.

Angelou, 80, author of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," delivered a poem at former president Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration, and the African American writer had previously said she is with Hillary Clinton for the long haul.

"Hillary Clinton is a prayer of every American who really longs for fair play," Angelou said in a video broadcast on North Carolina news channels.

"She intends to help our country become what it can become. She dares to say human beings are more alike than we are unalike."

North Carolina voters, along with those in Indiana, will get to cast their ballots in the Democratic Party primaries on Tuesday, as Clinton struggles to beat rival Barack Obama to the party's nomination.

Angelou, who also wrote "All God's Children's Need Traveling Shoes," has been linked to the civil rights movement since the 1950s.

Her collection of poems "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die" was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Clinton is on a historic quest to be elected in November as the country's first female president, as Obama also vies to make history as the first African-American elected to the Oval Office.

AFP, April 30, 2008